1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to aircraft and, in particular, to passenger flow control systems for aircraft. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method and apparatus for boarding passengers onto and deplaning passengers from an aircraft.
2. Background
Commercial aircraft often may include a passenger cabin. This passenger cabin may be a section of the aircraft with seats in which passengers travel. In commercial passenger aircraft, a passenger cabin may be divided into several parts.
Seats within the passenger area may be arranged in different groupings. These groupings may be defined by seats arranged in rows. One or more aisles also may be present in the aircraft to further divide the seats into the groupings. Further, different passenger areas for different classes of travel may be present for different groupings of seats. The amount of space provided per passenger may increase with the presence of a higher class of travel, such as first class or business class as compared to economy class.
Configurations of seats may be made with a goal of increasing the density of passengers in a cabin. As the number of passengers that can be seated increases, time for boarding and/or disembarking of passengers from an aircraft may be a factor taken into account when operating the aircraft.
The time needed for passengers to board and/or disembark an aircraft may be greater than desired. Reducing the amount of time needed to load and/or unload passengers may be desirable. By reducing the amount of time needed to load and/or unload passengers, the amount of time needed between flights may be decreased. As a result of reduced time between flights, an aircraft also may fly more flights during a day through the reduction of time at the gate.
The effect of reduced gate time on increasing availability of aircraft for additional flights may increase as the size of the aircraft decreases. Typically, smaller aircraft may be used for shorter flights and perform more flights during a day than larger aircraft. Some factors involved in reducing the amount of time at the gate may be the amount of fuel and cargo that are loaded and unloaded.
With the smaller aircraft performing more flights, the amount of fuel and cargo needed may be reduced. Further, with the smaller aircraft, loading other items such as meals may be unnecessary as compared to larger aircraft.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method and apparatus that takes into account at least some of the issues discussed above as well as possibly other issues.